People

AN STYLE='font-size: 100%; color: #990000; font-weight: bold; '>A Comic Proposal
Is nothing sacred? Long before Bridget Jones and Carrie Bradshaw made the suffering singleton chic, a neurotic, noseless career woman was a pioneer among Neanderthals like Hagar the Horrible. Now CATHY, the funny papers' eternal (or since 1976) bachelorette, will get a marriage proposal. The chubby cartoon icon has been warring with boyfriend Irving in recent strips, but he will finally pop the question on Valentine's Day. How Cathy responds is under wraps. Next to a photocopier somewhere, Dilbert is kicking himself.

Diva Diplomacy
Even U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan can't resist the lure of a certain statuesque Oscar winner. For years the U.N. has denied filmmakers access to the inside of its New York City headquarters — Alfred Hitchcock couldn't get in to shoot his 1959 thriller North by Northwest. But director Sydney Pollack won approval last week to film The Interpreter, in which NICOLE KIDMAN plays a translator who overhears an assassination plot. Diplomats are now inquiring whether they'll get to meet Kidman and how they can become extras. Perhaps peace in the Middle East can be brokered in the catering truck.

Wanted: Combs
When normally natty JAMES BROWN was booked on a domestic-violence charge last week looking more grunge than soul, he became the latest in a motley crew of celebrity culprits:

With his struck-by-lightning hair, glazed eyes and garish Hawaiian shirt, NICK NOLTE, nabbed for a DUI offense, set the standard by which all future mug shots shall be measured. Caught driving while intoxicated last fall in Nashville, Tenn., WYNONNA JUDD managed a smooth mane and Mona Lisa smile. But now we know how her makeup artist sees her.

His actual crimes outrank those of our other offenders, but SADDAM HUSSEIN looks somehow more kempt — especially since he, unlike them, really was pulled from a hole in the ground.